


Catalyst

by neeksknocks



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keith is a Mess, Light Angst, M/M, bc i mean its keith of course there's angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 17:24:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7447699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neeksknocks/pseuds/neeksknocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There wasn’t a lot that could get Keith’s blood boiling at this point in his life. He’d seen enough cruelty and spent enough time ignoring his problems that he had tricked himself into thinking he didn’t care. That he couldn’t care. Naturally, when he ended up stuck with someone whose sole purpose in life, it seemed, was to try to get on his nerves, he didn’t think it would phase him.</p><p>He was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catalyst

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't posted or even actually written any fanfiction in nearly four years so this is incredibly nerve wracking. Thanks a million to my two dope af betas [Maria Albert](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Maria_Albert/) and [TrollFishPrince](http://archiveofourown.org/users/trollfishprince)

There wasn’t a lot that could get Keith’s blood boiling at this point in his life. He’d seen enough cruelty and spent enough time ignoring his problems that he had tricked himself into thinking he didn’t care. That he couldn’t care. Naturally, when he ended up stuck with someone whose sole purpose in life, it seemed, was to try to get on his nerves, he didn’t think it would phase him.

He was wrong.

Lance wasn’t someone that used to concern him. He was just another person in a sea of faces that didn’t matter to Keith. Keith wanted, no, he needed to fly. The procedures, the protocol, the glory, none of it mattered to him. If he had to slug through years of training and grueling work surrounded by people who wouldn’t care if he dropped dead just to have a couple of seconds of flying free, he’d do it a thousand times over.

All of his instructors and commanding officers used him as an example whenever they could. Whether they were commending him for being such a naturally gifted recruit with unending potential or condemning him for his insubordinate attitude. He was always in the eyes of others when he didn’t want to be. He was allergic to the limelight, yet constantly seemed to find himself in it.

Lance, on the other hand, was a man who Keith would’ve forgotten easily if Lance hadn’t made it his mission in life to involve himself in all of Keith’s business. Keith had never had a rival before, but he was pretty sure that the two people had to be actively in a competition in order for it to count. Before the day Shiro returned from the Kerberos mission, Lance hadn’t crossed Keith’s mind more than three times.

The first time had been on the first day of their training. Their instructor had wanted to gauge each cadet’s physical prowess and assigned them all sparring partners. Keith and Lance had ended up together and it had taken less than a minute for Keith to completely take down Lance. The entire class had been laughing and pointing at Lance and Keith had actually felt a flicker of pity for him. He would’ve even offered the then-stranger a hand to help him up if Lance hadn’t shot up faster than lightning and hit Keith so hard in the jaw one of his teeth almost fell out. Of course, shortly after Lance had been on the floor again, this time without an almost offer of help. 

The second time had been a few months into training. It had been the dead of night, long after every cadet should have been asleep. Keith had woken in a cold sweat after a particularly unsettling nightmare and left his bunk to wash his face in one of the bathrooms. When he had entered the restroom he had heard a faint noise coming from one of the stalls. He had approached the stall cautiously before he was close enough to recognize the sound of crying. Most of him had just wanted to wash his face and vacate the premises as soon as possible, but against his better judgment he let his hand gently knock on the stall door.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

His voice had been soft enough he seriously doubted that the person in the stall heard him, especially after what seemed to be an eternity of silence. Keith swallowed and started to walk towards the sink before the person responded.

“Yeah,” a familiar voice said through sniffles. “I just really miss my mom.”

Keith couldn’t place who the voice belonged to, though he knew he heard it often. In retrospect, the reason he might not have recognized the voice was the fact that it was usually so high and mighty while at this point in time it was anything but. Keith had bitten his lip, wondering what he could possibly say that might help the stranger. Keith’s mother had been gone for years, and not just because he was enrolled in the military. 

“I miss mine too, sometimes,” Keith confessed.

It wasn’t what he wanted to say. He wanted to either have comforted the stranger or never engaged him in the first place. Keith knew from experience how empty words could hurt more than no words at all. 

He shook his head and walked to the sink, splashing water on his face quickly before exiting the bathroom. As he left, he hadn’t heard the crying continue. The next day when he heard Lance bragging to his circle of friends, the voice’s owner clicked in his mind. 

The third time had been the day after Keith learned about the Kerberos mission’s failure. He hadn’t felt such hot waves of rage in years. He was angry at the news organizations for blaming Shiro, he was bitter with his classmates for looking at him funny and speaking with hushed voices because they knew he had been close with the pilot, and he was furious with Shiro for breaking his promise. The day before the ship had left Shiro had promised him that he wouldn't be gone long, that he’d be back before Keith knew it. Now he was never coming back. 

Lance must’ve had only the best intentions when he talked to Keith that day. He likely never suspected he was the reason Keith was expelled from the program. 

Lance had approached Keith lacking his usual smug smile and confident gait. Instead, the cadet had looked insecure and he shifted a bit. Keith didn’t pay much attention to him, the patch of dead grass in front of him seemed far more interesting and far less irritating at that particular time.

“I, uh,” Lance stuttered, looking increasingly awkward with each word. “I heard you were close with the pilot of the Kerberos mission. I didn’t know him well, but what I did know he was seriously a cool guy. One of the best. And I, um, I just wanted you to know…”

Keith looked up, levelly taking in Lance’s discomfort. Almost every time he talked Lance was either making a joke or a challenge. Seeing him like this was…strange at best. Unnerving.

“Even the best pilots aren’t perfect. Whatever mistake he made–”

Keith had promptly bolted to his feet and darted away faster than he’d ever moved in his life. He was so tired of that excuse. There was another reason, there had to have been another reason, Shiro wouldn’t have just made a mistake like that, not one that would’ve gotten him and his crew killed. Everyone had been so quick to just accept it, to just forget about all the good he’d done, to blame him when he wasn’t even there to defend himself. 

The next group of boys he’d passed hadn’t said anything special, anything different than what the others were saying, but one of them had said the words “pilot error” with a condescending, knowing smirk, and Keith had just lost it. The next thing he knew, he was being torn off the cowering cadet he’d pummeled nearly unconscious, and then the MPs had dragged him away. He’d been thrown out of the program and off the base within the hour.

 

Now, months later, thanks to Lance becoming the Blue Paladin and Keith being forced to associate with him, Lance was always on his mind. Whether it was a thoughtless comment or a provocative statement, Keith found himself thinking more about Lance than he had about Shiro, even during his most impressionable cadet years. And he knew it was only a matter of time before the unsettling, frustrating, oftentimes infuriating man turned his world upside down once again.

**Author's Note:**

> keith is so gay


End file.
